3 Insanely simple tips to transform your follow-up emails in 2018.

2018 is truly an incredible time to be working in sales. The Instagram-era is here to stay and it presents its own pros and cons to sales hustlers looking to follow-up with their prospects to close deals.

“How can I make my customer respond to my follow-up email so I can meet my quota?”

Filling your email copy with phrases like “Just wanted to” and “I’d like to..” demonstrate how you are doing the act of following up mainly to complete your task list and be done but not really caring about your customer.

Scratch your customer’s itch. Not yours.

The better alternatives to phrases mentioned above are “To help you with your X goal, I’d love to find time with you..” or “Knowing your time is precious, looking to wrap this process..”.

“Here I come with my buzzwords.”

2. Be compelling before convincing.

All of sales is persuasion. So it is very easy to be pushy. In fact, when most reps send a follow-up, the entire messaging is focused on “BUY OUR PRODUCT”, “BUY OUR PRODUCT” and “BUY OUR PRODUCT”.

“May be I didn’t remind them in my last 20 interactions on what I need from them…Buy from me pls thx k bye.”

Your customer will hit the delete button just as fast as you hit the send button.

Instead be f*cking epic. Use the follow-up opportunity to sweep people off their feat. Throw in a funny gif. An interesting cocktail recipe. Industry trend report that no one has access to. Mention their favorite sports team’s recent victory and how you lost a bet.[Go Dawgs!] Share your hotel or pub recommendations if you know they are travelling to a city for business conference. Be contextual. Be human.

Delight your customers, surprise them, give them a ‘wow’ moment.

Don’t throw in your sales pitch yet. Let them experience what you offer.

Also, write like your customer can read your email on a treadmill.

Use simple short sentences. Writing at a 3rd grade level English is enough. Write your email copy like how Vala writes his tweets. The man is a legend at Salesforce yet uses simple language. See here & here.

3. Make it easy for them to respond.

Use technology wherever you can to optimize the trivial tasks you are asking them to do. Give them typeform surveys instead of boring old-school forms. Give them a pre-filled text if you want them to share your links on Twitter. [Tweet this!] Share your Calendly link in your email signature if you are asking them for a meeting. Include your phone number under your email every single time so they can call you. Use technology to save their time and they’ll more likely want to do business with you.

“Why should I make their life easy with technology when they haven’t followed me back on Twitter?”

PS: Don’t ask dumb obvious questions. Ask Alexa or Google Assistant about anything that’s available on the internet about your customer. Set up Google Alerts or check out their Linkedin page to see what they are up to.

What else? What are some of your thoughts/comments on how follow-up emails can be improved?